Mark Davis: Oakland A’s are holding up progress on new stadium

While the Raiders’ extending of their lease in Oakland for another year might have been a short-term relief, Mark Davis still has a long-term problem with his co-tenant in O.co Coliseum.

The Raiders owner took aim at the Oakland A’s as an impediment in his quest for a new stadium in Oakland.

The baseball team signed a 10-year lease on the old place in 2014, and Davis said until they declare their intentions for the future, it’s hard to move forward.

“There’s an elephant in the room, and that’s the Oakland A’s. “They have to make a commitment to what they want to do,” Davis said, via Scott Bair of CSNBayArea.com. “That’s the problem. They signed a 10-year lease while we were negotiating with Oakland officials, and it kind of put somebody right in the middle of things. There isn’t much you can do. They’ve tied our hands behind our back.

“Now it’s up to the A’s to make a declaration of what they want to do. If they don’t do that, I don’t see how we can make a deal.”

Davis said his long-term plan is for each team to have a new building on the current site. But he also doesn’t want to compromise parking and tailgating possibilities during construction, hoping to tear down the decrepit hulk of a stadium and come back to a new one rather than work piecemeal.

“What I do not want to do,” Davis said, “is build a football stadium in a corner of a parking lot while the Oakland Coliseum is still standing and, once we have a brand new venue, we begin to tear down the old stadium and build a new ballpark, disrupting the ingress, egress, parking and tailgating experience for Raiders fans on game day.”

Of course, all that takes money, and that’s the problem. Local officials have insisted they won’t spend public funds on the project, and it’ll take more than the $100 million the league is offering them to stay put to make a new stadium magically appear.

Why such worry about disrupting tailigating for a couple seasons? That should be pretty low on the priority list.

The most important things are creating great fan friendly stadiums and getting them done as quickly as possible. If you really have to just go play in one of the stadiums nearby until the new one is ready. There’s at least 3 nearby that I can think of.

……Don’t blame the A’s Mark. You’ve totally botched the whole new stadium negotiations. IF you start threatening to move to San Antonio, watch how quickly this thing gets resolved. BTW….San Antonio is where you SHOULD go if you want a new market. They are the new Los Angeles threat.

Except that the A’s lease stipulates that the City of Oakland can give the A’s a two year notice of lease termination in the event the Raiders and Oakland strike a deal on a new stadium. So really, the mechanisims are already in place to give the A’s the boot if need be, Mark is making another excuse as to why hes spent all his energy looking elsewhere instead of trully trying to get a stadium deal in Oakland.

harrisonhits2 says:
Feb 12, 2016 9:26 AM
Uh no, what’s holding up the new stadium is you won’t pay for your own building.

Nowhere else in the world do cities or states pay for private, professional sports team stadiums.

The cities and states in the US need to stand up to the walking bags of greed that are the NFL ownership and tell them to build their own stadiums or shutup and go away.
________________________________

Outside of the U.K., it’s actually quite common for European soccer stadiums to be funded with public money. Additionally, they typically aren’t anywhere near as transparent with how much tax money money is spent.

Mark never should have let Reggie push Amy Trask out the door. She would have resolved this whole debacle long ago. Just one in a loooooooong list of bad decisions since 2011.
——————————————————————————————–Wrong again deadringo! Amy had 15 years to get a deal done. Mark may be struggling, but he’s got a lot closer to getting a deal done than she ever did…And Reggie didn’t run her off. She quit. Of course you know that.

“Baseball can’t come to grips with the reality of not being the #1 sport in America.”

I’m sure they’re fine with their drawing 5x the fans (given were talking about a stadium here it’s fairly relevant), their 9.5 Billion in revenue, ownership of a major new media player and the lack of major health concerns that create questions of the sport even looking like itself in 20 years.

hiflew says:
Feb 12, 2016 8:50 AM
“They have to make a commitment to what they want to do,” Davis said.

Um, they did make a commitment. That is what a lease is. I believe it is the Raiders that are wavering on what to do. I never thought I would miss Al Davis, but his son is much worse.

==================================

The A’s signed a 10 year lease that will have their fans paying good money to come to an outdated 1966 toilet of a stadium until 2024. This lease made it harder for the Raiders to get a deal done, and that was at least partially the point of doing it because Lew wants the whole Coliseum complex to himself, screw the Raider fans who happen to also be A’s fans. They make huge profits due to the luxury tax and spend none of that money to keep their own players, yet there are fans here defending them.

The A’s signed a 10 year lease that will have their fans paying good money to come to an outdated 1966 toilet of a stadium until 2024. This lease made it harder for the Raiders to get a deal done, and that was at least partially the point of doing it because Lew wants the whole Coliseum complex to himself, screw the Raider fans who happen to also be A’s fans. They make huge profits due to the luxury tax and spend none of that money to keep their own players, yet there are fans here defending them.

I was not defending the A’s nor am I a fan of the A’s. I was just pointing out that they did make a commitment despite Davis’s insistence that they do something. Whether or not the commitment they made is good is a different story. I don’t really care if the A’s get a new stadium or move back to KC or Philly or Portland or Timbuktu. If you don’t like the way the A’s run their team, there are 29 other baseball teams to cheer for. Otherwise, get over yourself. As far as your final comments, why is it that sports are the only business where people think huge profits is a bad thing? Newsflash: If owners didn’t make profits, there wouldn’t be ANY professional sports.

Why shouldn’t the A’s do whats in their best interests? Why would they care about the Raiders? It sounds like he’s mad thing don’t always go his way.

Tell you what Mark – I’ll switch places with you, and I’ll still wear your same haircut too.
I’ll be happy with my 500 million, plus my team. I’ll try and find a better GM and get some good players. Then it should be easier to find a good head coach.

Or – if you can’t run with the big boys like Kroenke – sell the team. Invest the money in a diversified portfolio and go live where you want.

I was not defending the A’s nor am I a fan of the A’s. I was just pointing out that they did make a commitment despite Davis’s insistence that they do something. Whether or not the commitment they made is good is a different story. I don’t really care if the A’s get a new stadium or move back to KC or Philly or Portland or Timbuktu. If you don’t like the way the A’s run their team, there are 29 other baseball teams to cheer for. Otherwise, get over yourself. As far as your final comments, why is it that sports are the only business where people think huge profits is a bad thing? Newsflash: If owners didn’t make profits, there wouldn’t be ANY professional sports.

==================================

For the record, I’m not an A’s fan, just a Raider fan from the east coast. And I am not Bernie Sanders, I’m a pro-profits capitalist. I just don’t give the A’s credit for pocketing profits that come not due to their own efforts, but due to millions from other major league teams, and not using this money to improve their team. And while a 10 year lease looks like a commitment to the city and fans, it was really a cynical move to try and keep the whole complex to themselves.

I happen to root for the Yankees, who give as much if not more then their share of profits to teams like the A’s. I’m cool with that if it’s used for the intended purpose; to help small market teams compete with large market teams. Wolff and company use it the way a dictator uses aid dollars from the US; to enrich themselves.